*UPDATE: The conservative immigration bill failed to pass the House
The House began debating on the Goodlatte immigration bill, considered the more conservative one, at 12:20PM ET. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that the House will vote on the compromise bill tomorrow.
It looks like House leadership will meet in the office of Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) ahead of the vote.
Chad Pergram tweeted that the House has decided to debate the farm bill between the two immigration bills, which will give House leadership time to persuade GOP members to vote for the compromise bill.
President Donald Trump said before his Cabinet meeting that he is inviting the Democratic leadership to the White House to talk immigration. He said that they’re invited to the “White House any time they want” and that “[T]his afternoon would be good” or even after the Cabinet meeting.
1:45PM ET: Right now, the House is voting to send the conservative bill back to committee and vote on DREAM Act. If this doesn’t work, then the lawmakers will vote on the conservative bill.
1:57PM: The compromise bill vote will happen on Friday.
2:07PM ET: The House is now voting on the conservative bill.
2:13PM ET: The conservative bill has FAILED in the House. 41 GOP members voted against it.
The House has two immigration bills on the table, one considered conservative and the other more moderate.
The moderate bill “would provide legal protections for undocumented young people known as ‘Dreamers’ while also providing $23.4 billion for a wall along the border with Mexico.” USA Today continued:
On one of the most contentious issues, the draft proposal would allow an estimated 1.8 million “Dreamers” to apply for “nonimmigrant status”– essentially a conditional legal visa – if they meet certain conditions. They must, for example, have a high school diploma or GED and must be under 36 years of age as of June 15.Those conditional visas would be taken from new restrictions on legal immigration included in the GOP bill; the measure would nix a diversity lottery program and limit family-based immigration. Once the “Dreamers” have taken the visa slots from those two programs, they will disappear – thus reducing legal immigration.If the “Dreamers” win that nonimmigrant status, then after six years, they can apply for a green card, which will set them on the path to eventual citizenship.
This compromise bill would also stop “separation of immigrant families seeking asylum at the border” and allow “children to stay with parents in the same detention facilities.”
The Goodlatte bill, Secure America’s Future Act, has what the White House wants and some more, according to National Review:
It abolishes the extended-family chain migration categories and the visa lottery, authorizes wall funding and extra border agents, cracks down on sanctuary cities and asylum abuse, and mandates E-Verify.
It also would essentially codify DACA for its current beneficiaries, rather than open a whole new can of worms for 2 or 3 million “DACA-eligible” people, as all other proposals would do.
Trump already supports Goodlatte’s bill.
The Hill reported that House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows is not optimistic about either bill:
“I’m not optimistic about the two bills that will be on the floor today,” Meadows said Thursday in an interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising.” “I think at this point the more conservative bill doesn’t get to 218. It’s still up in the air whether the more moderate bill gets to 218.”“If I were to have to handicap it right now at this particular point this morning,” he added, “I would say no, it’s not.”
It didn’t help matters that the compromise bill had a $100 billion mistake in it. The bill gave $24.8 billion every year for the wall instead of every five years.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) said he would not vote for the compromise because he does not approve of the “provision that allows the parents of DACA kids to be brought in at a later date.” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) did not say she would vote against it, but said Congress nees “to clarify DACA parents.”
From The Hill:
Regardless whether two immigration bills pass or fail, the votes will have been a “legitimate exercise,” Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Thursday.The Wisconsin Republican argued that he views the pair of votes as a success because they avert a discharge petition effort by moderate GOP insurgents and Democrats, and allow Republicans to vote on immigration legislation backed by President Trump.The push for the petition was an “exercise in futility,” Ryan argued, because it would have handed control of the floor to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democrats.“Our goal was to prevent a discharge petition from reaching the floor, because a discharge petition would have brought legislation to the floor that the president would have surely vetoed. It would have been an exercise in futility. …” Ryan said at his weekly press briefing.“The bills that are coming to the floor today are bills that, if it got to his desk, [Trump] would sign into law. Therefore, it’s a legitimate exercise.”
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